Yesterday, as I was driving along the autostrade, I was hemmed in by a concrete mixing truck on one side, a Porsche Cayenne on the other and a tank in front.

Anyone who has driven on Lebanese roads knows that they are blissfully free of such restrictive concepts as indicating, fixed lanes and safe stopping distances; as such you end up intimately close to the other vehicles even when you’d rather not.

Police calm rock-lobbing protesters outside EDL

As I was watching the beret-clad soldiers swinging their assault rifles scarcely three metres from my windscreen, I thought about how you somehow get used to Lebanon’s eclecticism over time.

Yesterday we barely looked up from our work to watch a UN helicopter land on the helipad of a local hospital. The day before I watched from the window as crowds lobbed rocks at the Electricité du Liban building and riot police poured out of trucks to quell the protest.

a peaceful coast

How am I going to cope with days of waking to the deep-throated call of a wood pigeon, miles of rolling green hills dotted with pasturing sheep and the rhythmic splash of waves on a beach (not being drowned out by club music)?